CHALLENGED! Making transition from FCP7 to FCPX

I've been working in FCP7 (and prior) for over 15 years. Two things to request:

1) For those of you who have been on this journey, what are the 3-5 most important things you had to learn to help you master FCPX? I'm not expecting you to write a long volume. But any short pointers that come to mind.2) If you have come across some very helpful (very practical) tutorials, video, etc. that have helped you make this transition, I would love to know about them. I'm still working to get my head around the key differences between the two - and to make the transition as quickly as possible. THANKS MUCH!

Hi Jerry,
I went through a similar kind of switch a while back. I had used MC and FCP 7 for over 21 years. No looking back now:)
A few things to remember
-Unlearn whatever you know about NLEs (track based NLEs like PrPro, FCP 7 or MC)
-DO NOT try to make FCP X work like FCP 7/PrPro etc. It is a completely different way of editing on a NLE.
-Stop hitting command S to save every few minutes (you don't have to:)
-This is one NLE for which you NEED a tutorial.
It is going to be frustrating for a while and then you'll get it. And then you'll wonder why you waited this long to make the switch:)
I bought Ripple Training's tutorials. There is a popular free one. I think it's called Izzy's. But I am super happy with Ripple:)
I've completely stopped using FCP 7 and MC foe over 2 years now. I still use PrPro CC for a particular client where I need tracks. For everything else, FCPX:) It's a super fast and fun NLE to use.
And there are some really cool plugins for X.
Stick with it, you'll love it.

Thanks, Kannan. Very kind of you. And encouraging. As you already know, it is a little like letting go of one acrobatic rope before grasping the other! ☺ I have been putting this off for some time - just too comfortable and happy with FCP 7 for most of my projects. But growth never stops - and neither can I.

I am going through some of the Ripple video right now. I agree - very helpful. I will also check out Izzy's.

As you allude to, the biggest challenge is letting go of all my habits and learning new ones. So wish me luck. (Part of the challenge is that I am just starting a couple of new projects, so feeling that pressure. But it is also a motivating force.)

I get you Jerry:)
Just yesterday, went to a client's place. They're still using FCP 7. Had my MBP with me. Opted to work on my laptop with FCPX instead of FCP 7. Whipped out the promo really fast. Clients were super impressed by X. They'e upgrading all their 4 suites to PrPro soon. Now, they're getting X too:)
Have fun mate. People are here to help you out:)

The transition will be a bit of a haul I suspect, but get the tutorials and go thru that. There are a few get out of jail keystrokes, like the P key followed by the grave key that you should know. FCPX does not work like 7 and so forget your 7 work methods and learn some new ones. X is actually pretty liberating in a way because for me it lets me concentrate on the 'editing' part - trying things out quickly, auditioning clips, moving things around easily , with less distraction from what I call the fiddly little parts of editing that 7 encompasses.
The browser organization and search tools are first rate and I suggest spending a serious amount of time there learning what can be done. Doing this will pay forward many benefits once you start cutting.

Jerry, Kannan said exactly what I wanted to say and he did it very well. I just want to emphasize a couple of his points. The first is to forget everything you know about NLE's. Every. Thing. The Magnetic Timeline, as Kannan said, will be frustrating at first. Frustrating! You'll do a lot of "WHY does it not do what I expect?" Well, if what you expect is what track-based NLE's do then, yes, you'll pull your hair out. FCPX is a praradigm shift. Paradigm. Shift. It's a different World View that, once you 'get it', you'll never go back. Right now you're a tribal witch doctor trying to heal your sick people. Afterward, you'll be the trained physician butting heads against those who are trying to use FCPX as a track-based editor. But, please persevere. At some point the clouds will part and the sun will shine rays upon you and you'll be enlightened. And, you'll edit faster than you have ever edited in your life. Faster!

You can, if you want, make FCPX slow down and work like a track-based editor. I know people who are working on FCPX but don't invest in actually learning it because they're just using it in a familiar way, but clicking around until they are doing something akin to track-based editing. Please invest in some larn-ning.

RippleTraining.com is, in my opinion (and I have no connection with the company), the best. Not only do i buy every FCPX and Motion tutorial they put out, but they do a weekly free tip called MacBreak Studio. If you go to their YouTube channel to see the catalog of past MBS's and start watching them, you'll be amazed. It's a free insight to magic that is Final Cut Pro X. And, you'll discover Motion. No, it doesn't have the high-end power of After Effects, but it'll do everything that the vast majority of us need and you can easily create your own effects for FCPX that are automatically installed. I've created about a dozen effects for my needs so far.

The biggest benefit of doing RippleTraining.com, aside from the excellent content of the training material, is the way they give you access to your purchased tutorials. They are all online and accessible anytime and anywhere. All this and you can still download your tutorials, unlocked, to your local disk. I rarely have to do that though because wherever I go I can quickly access any of my tutorials and get reminded about a process.

So, forget about what you know and open your mind. You will be rewarded. Do not try to 'click around' to learn because you'll just drift into old habits and conform FCPX into a track-based editor. Learn. Learn. Learn. I study FCPX and Motion every day. Every. Day. - Don Smith, NewsVideo.com

Thanks, Don. Very helpful advise - I've read it more than once. I am doing my best to LEARN as you suggest. And to not get locked in to how I've done things in the past. Trying to be an "old dog" here learning new ways.

I especially appreciated your info on MacBreak Studio. I've watched (and appreciated) several of the Ripple projects. (ANd I agree that they are very helpful.) But was not aware of MBS. Checking it out today. Thanks again. Jerry

[Don Smith]"The Magnetic Timeline, as Kannan said, will be frustrating at first. Frustrating! You'll do a lot of "WHY does it not do what I expect?" Well, if what you expect is what track-based NLE's do then, yes, you'll pull your hair out. FCPX is a praradigm shift. Paradigm. Shift. It's a different World View that, once you 'get it', you'll never go back."

+1

I will never go back and I agree with everything that everyone has said. One thing no one mentioned about the praradigm shift, and my little bit of advice is this:

Stop thinking about Tracks

Start thinking about the Story that you are trying to tell

What is the story? (Your Primary Storyline) What are the sub-stories? (create Secondary Storylines for these) What do you need to make the story advance? How do the secondary stories support that? Maybe you just need a cut-away for a moment (use Connected Clips). FCP X is all about facilitating the telling of the story.

There are no "gaps" in telling a story! Editors leave gaps on timelines while they are editing because with track-based NLEs it's so hard to insert something later. With the Magnetic Storyline you can decide that something fits better in the middle of something else and simply grab the clip on the primary storyline and drag it to where you want it to be and everything associated with it, the connected clips, and secondary storylines, the foley, etc. come with it, and what is the most magical is that everything else in the new location moves out of the way to make room without you having to do anything!!! This is the true power of the magnetic timeline. Once you rearrange the story to make it flow better, and everything just falls into place, you will wonder why you waster hours of editing time managing tracks and clips and gaps (on my!). ;-)

I have been forced to start cutting on FCPX as my main client now using it as their primary edit tool for features.

Like many others I have found the transition deeply frustrating and some of the comments here in this thread are, it seems to me, 'unhelpful'. Specifically:

1) Suggesting that FCPX is 'all about the story' suggests that every other edit tool is not. I am not aware that FCPX serves the story any better then any other NLE and i am not aware of having being unable to tell stories in Premier or FCP7 before now. So this is unhelpful twaddle. The idea that the magnetic timeline works some sort of magic is a nonsense. The track tool in Premier of FCP7 allowed you to move the entire story line down the timeline to build a new sequence in the middle of the film or copy and paste a sequence form elsewhere (including from another edit) and slot it in. The 'add gap' tool in FCPX is just a bit less handy than the track tool.

2) 'forgetting tracks' is also nonsense because FCPX uses tracks it just renames them as 'storylines'. Audio lanes mimics audio tracks and I can see that assigning roles to specific audio puts them on different 'lanes' but I can't see that the same is true of assigning roles to video clips. In other NLE's the ability to order video tracks so that you have say sync on track 1 and cutaways on Track 2 allows you to very easily create a sequence and shift things about. You can then add specific trans for alpha channels or grades (in Premier Pro) and build mini title animations or layered fast cut edits. etc. This kind of precise cuttign still seems to be much easier to achieve in a classic track based NLE like Premier.

3) 64 bit v 32 bit aside, FCPX is not necessarily 'faster'. There are plenty of people who have cut 1/2hrs for broadcast in a day on all manner of systems including on FCP7. You are up and running on Premier Pro much more quickly than you are on FCPX as you don't need to wait for the machine to churn to ingest & transcode footage. The biggest beef I have with FCPX so far is how it handles media. I have had to use Edit ready to transcode P2 media to ProRes Quicktime files on my last project and one of my colleagues had issues with Canon Log, which again needed to be transcoded for FCPX to play with it. FCPX saves me no hard drive space as the workflow I have settles on to the safe is that everything should go through Edit Ready before it gets imported into FCPX. This is partly due to point 4 ...(below)

4) Sharing projects seems problematic. I took the (very) rough cut into the client for final cutting. They loaded my XML without a hitch. We produced a first cut. The Series Editor asked for some script changes. I brought the XML back to my studio and none of my source material would relink to the new XML. The reason? FCPX it seems had created a load of proxy files on the client system (links to ProRes files) that I could not relink on my system. I have since learned that for grading the colourist will require the entire project (sorry "library' - minor gripe, but why use different language when referring to everything. WTF is an 'event'...?) rather than an XML. Ok, this would be the case on FCP7, but nonetheless, FCPX is not proving to be any smarter at handling/managing media than FCP7 which required a consolidated project file for post. Worse, the OMFs that FCPX exports for audio dubbing are, I am told< a shocking mess.

5) Adapting to this system has taken most of the editors i know a huge amount of time. Now for old dogs to learn new tricks is not a bad thing, but just think for a minute about how much time, collectively everyone has had to waste learning this application. It has caused days of down time with my main client and I have spent endless hours looking at Youtube and other tutorials trying to figure out how to make this system work. Compare that with the amount of time I spent learning Premier or Davinci Resolve - about an hour and you're up and running. If the system were some holy grail then it might be worth it, but to end up working on an NLE that is actually not quite as good as others out there is just crap.

Those points not withstanding and given that I have to learn this system my requests are these:
1) can the magnetic timeline be turned off? Sorry it is very annoying. I can see some benefits, but it would be good to be able to disable it.
2) can I scrub/preview clips in the preview window rather than having to do this in the bins
3) Can I have a track tool!
4) Is it possible to layout my desktop and resize windows as I need them? There only seems to be fixed layouts and you cannot resize windows. This is a major loss from FCP7. And each time I restart FCPX I have to manually reposition stuff to my seccon screen, even though I have saved my desktop layout. What is that all about...?

Given the choice, I would be cutting on Premier...just in case anyone was wondering...every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[Andrew Johnstone]" The idea that the magnetic timeline works some sort of magic is a nonsense..."

There are pros and cons to it. In the "Off the Tracks" documentary, Apple engineer Dave Cerf (who was a designer of the magnetic timeline and later assisted Walter Murch) described some of the philosophy behind it. I personally think some other features such as the high-performance skimmer, range-based tagging and pervasive database orientation make a bigger difference in overall productivity.

[Andrew Johnstone]... 'forgetting tracks' is also nonsense because FCPX uses tracks it just renames them as 'storylines'.

Storylines and audio lanes are quite different from tracks. If a storyline was simply a track by another name, people wouldn't have such a difficult time adjusting to FCPX.

[Andrew Johnstone]...64 bit v 32 bit aside, FCPX is not necessarily 'faster'. There are plenty of people who have cut 1/2hrs for broadcast in a day on all manner of systems including on FCP7...

You can obviously get the job done with any NLE, and the proficiency of the DIT, Asst. Editor and Lead Editor make a big difference. FCPX is very strong at unscripted high-shooting-ratio material like field documentaries. This has little to do with the magnetic timeline but more involves the skimmer and range-based rating and keywording.

[Andrew Johnstone]....You are up and running on Premier Pro much more quickly than you are on FCPX as you don't need to wait for the machine to churn to ingest & transcode footage...

I've used Premiere since CS4 and have a subscription to CC. FCPX is generally no different regarding performance of ingest using "leave files in place". It does not require transcoding. You are probably describing ingest with re-wrap which FCPX does by default for certain tree-oriented media formats. Using the right technique, those can usually be imported using "leave files in place", although there is some variation.

[Andrew Johnstone]....The biggest beef I have with FCPX so far is how it handles media. I have had to use Edit ready to transcode P2 media to ProRes Quicktime files on my last project...

In most cases you don't need to transcode to ProRes using EditReady. It can usually just re-wrap (IOW "passthrough" ) the files which is vastly faster. On FCPX 10.4.3, I can directly import 4k MXF files from a Sony PMW-F55 using "leave files in place", and it works OK. Those can also be re-wrapped via EditReady without transcoding.

[Andrew Johnstone]...Sharing projects seems problematic... I brought the XML back to my studio and none of my source material would relink to the new XML. The reason? FCPX it seems had created a load of proxy files on the client system (links to ProRes files) that I could not relink on my system...

MacBreak Studio/Ripple Training tutorials. LOTS of good info (and Steve and Mark seem like good guys). Be careful going back to the earliest videos as FCPX has been updated MANY times since they were produced. Good for concepts, but many have been improved since first introduced.

As mentioned earlier, don't force it to be FCP7, else you'll get frustrated and completely defeat the advantages built in to FCPX. Many of the features that people seem to get hung up on in FCPX (e.g.: magnetic timeline) can be learned very quickly and/or overridden using key commands. (And IMHO, don't underestimate the power of the INSERT GAP command.)

As I informed my wife who is a fearsome editor in her own right - 'insert gap' is not to be ignored. She liked to work in 7 - throw a bunch of clips on the timeline and park some clips she had plans for way off to the right. Transitioning to X was hard for her because of magnetic TL , but once I showed her insert gap, she was cool.

Thanks, Mike. Very kind of you. Yes, I am quickly learning that I have to let go - divorce myself - from 7. It is history. A great ride while it lasted. Just another reminder that learning never ends. ☺

X really seems built around an emphasis on the pre-edit workflow: on detailed logging and careful organization and cataloging of assets. For people used to just hopping on the horse and galloping thru a cut as soon as some clips are imported, this can be frustrating, but I can assure you if you put in the organizational work at the front of the process, it pays off later in a smoother, faster edit if you first saddle the horse:-)

+1 about making a big effort in the browser to screen, favorite hide & tag your material.
1) you get familiar with the material
2) you get organized
3) the actual composing part of your edit will be much easier
4) selecting clip ranges and hiding the "junk" is one of the best features in the browser behind all the tagging and logging features.

I'd say it's even faster for those that like to just jump in. With skimming in the browser you can look through enormous amounts of footage in seconds. And since the timeline let's you drag stuff about without being destructive you don't need to be so particular about mark in, mark out. X let's you be more creative IN the timeline. You can log something to death. Sometimes a project just needs to get on with it. Things need to be seen in context with each other.

When I first started using X I got all excited with some interviews we shot. I wasn't even half way done with all my logging and rejecting and organizing when my wife (the producer) walked in with a rough cut she had put together in a few minutes by physically cutting up the printed transcript and arranging the responses into a legible storyline. There I was still organizing away diligently with my new toy when a piece of paper and scissors was the better tool.

"Jump in and get it done " can work - but if you are new to the app then knowing some basics is a good thing because without that knowledge I can pretty much guarantee you end up feeling like you're in some sticky web that tries to thwart you at every turn. When I started in X after having used FCP 5,6,7 I though I would just jump in and make something happen and I did- it wasn't pretty. I had to take a step back and get a few concepts rearranged for myself before I could make further progress.
Project have different thresholds of organization required. If you have 3 interview s totalling an hour and some b roll, you might just jump in find your sound bites, and slap them in the ime line as you go, paste b roll add titles and done. Not a lot of need to keyword, favorite tag etc. I routinely deal with projects that have gazillions of hours of potential footage, so if I don't do a solid job of screening & tagging, I'm sunk, going nowhere. Its up to you to figure out where that transition zone between jump in and get it done vs take the time to organize lies for you and your project.

As I don't make my main income with video editing, I could try FCP X without a lot of pressure and just decided to edit a music video I shot in it and while it was slow compared to PPro and MC, I could start to see its value.

Since then I converted all my old PPro projects (converted from MC earlier) to FCP X and got rid of Adobe completely, and I don't regret it.
I am by no means a professional in FCP X, but it helped me edit tremendously. I even could use a pesky 12" MacBook to edit 26+ "vacation" music videos, which took around two months in my free time. FCP X makes storytelling much easier, even though I am no storyteller. Well.